


First Name Basis

by fortunecookie



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Arthur-centric, Cute Kids, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, M/M, Oneshot, Post-Inception, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunecookie/pseuds/fortunecookie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cobb cocks his head and he's moving swiftly around the dining counter, wiping off stains. Arthur off-handedly hands him the dirty cups of coffee and they soundlessly wash up breakfast.</p>
<p>"Personal?"</p>
<p>The question comes as they're watching the morning news; Cobb switching through History Channel and CNN and Arthur operating the radio to get some good quality music. Arthur's too absorbed in the dials to notice when Cobb prods his knee and repeats, louder this time, "Do you want to move because of a personal thing?""</p>
<p>Post-Inception, Arthur stays at Cobb's house and they become something almost like a family. Arguing kids, whipped cream fights, washing dishes, and choosing apartments. Then Arthur realizes he's falling in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Name Basis

**Author's Note:**

> Been working on this since summer! Man my procrastination. Enjoy fluffy domestic Arthur x Cobb. Arthur stays at Cobb's house post-inception. Kids love him, Cobb's falling= nuff said. As usual, I don't claim to own anything but my crazy shipping fangirlness. :)

Arthur knows that Cobb has a first name. 

He knows full well, even though Cobb - sorry, Dom, sweetheart - reacts as if they've only just met and he's itching to introduce his first, middle, and last name (plus his children's, his dog's, his grandparents') whenever - repeat, whenever - Arthur calls him Cobb. Yes, Arthur's well aware of 'Dom', having been witness (read: best man) at said man's wedding, and having signed dozens of confidentiality reports and contracts with Arthur inked in after Dominic. For sweet Jesus' sake. The extractor, he thinks, should give his point man, the slick suited one he's worked with hundreds of times, more wiggling room. He knows. He knows the way it's spelled, said, spoilt, sung. He just doesn't want it on his tongue, for his own reasons, and they're reasons most definitely not involving said extractor.

Those reasons also may or may not involve Mal.

\---

SCENE 1

Arthur is in the living room, surfing secured archives for the details of the next extraction, when Phillipa and James suddenly tumble into the room with shrieks and laughter and - is that? - 

\- canisters of whipped cream. For all his grace and fast thinking, the kids throw him off guard and they delightedly spray him with oodles of the white puffy sugar.

"We got you, Uncle Arthur!" James says. His smile reaches the ends of his dimpled cheeks and it exposes his missing front tooth. (The gap is about a week old, he reminds himself, since the imprinted image of Cobb slamming his head against the kitchen cabinets after rushing to the emergency room at one a.m. - "James fell off the bed at a sleepover, goddamnit" - is so comical. Hard to forget.)

James is crawling all over him now and Arthur cracks a sly grin at the rambunctious youngster before winking, grabbing the canister out of his hand using a jujitsu move, and spraying a beard on him. Cute, he thinks, and James is prancing up and down, trying to get to the sprinklers outside to wash it all off, and he's laughing now. Really laughing - chuckles that tickle his spine - so when Phillipa decides to retaliate by first issuing a screech worthy of a campy ninja movie, and second, using her canister to unleash a never-ending string of cream that sticks everywhere; his face, suit, tie. Three piece custom Arthur-classy ensemble ruined by a six year old girl.

"Oh," he says nonchalantly. (But the kids know him too well now, and Phillipa is hiding under the couch.) "You're so going to get it now," he raises his voice, shutting the laptop down.

"Hmm, what could this squiggling creature be - could it be a little girl - oh, it couldn't - wait, it moves even more - is that you down there, Phillipa?" With the last word, the girl squirms out of his reach and leaps out under the couch.

"Gotcha!" Arthur takes a scoopful of cream and tousles it in her strawberry-blond hair, and just like that Phillipa is yelping and joining her brother in the summertime sprinklers of salvation.

(Was Mal a gymnast or an athlete at least? Mal's and Cobb's children are inexhaustible moving machines, and he's never seen Cobb touch a baseball or swimming googles for exercise.(Not that he needs it.))

It's at this time that Arthur suddenly realizes, holy shit, Cobb is going to have a hell of a time cleaning the sticky substance off the oak floor, the glass windows, the cashmere sofa, the (expensive? inexpensive?) coffee table, and there's no telling if he'll give the kids another lecture. He scolded Phillipa for accidentally stealing a croissant from the local bakery once. Arthur had an absentee father and he is living proof that the frequent nervous lectures never once edged him an inch towards forgiveness, so he tries to lighten the mood around the house with well-overdue mischief, without gravitating towards the Good Cop role Cobb's Bad Cop role sometimes demands.

So Cobb goes home to a wetter, but squeaky clean house, and hey, the kids are already bathed and semi-tired too, so James' chatter doesn't drone on and Phillipa doesn't twist her hair into braids that drag into her plate of mashed potatoes. 

"It's because of Uncle Arthur," they say happily to explain their leisurely mood when Cobb asks. Cobb looks at him quizzically but doesn't say anything else.

"Uncle Arthur, huh?"

"Yeah," James pipes up, "we had a whipped cream war and I whipped his butt!"

The amused look on Cobb's face, and the split second he turns to appraise Arthur with something like admiration and gratefulness in his sea-deep eyes, is enough to make Arthur want to ruin a whole new three-piece suit. To hell though if it's his Armani. Arthur makes a smart assed but kid friendly comeback to James' declaration of victory and Phillipa makes sure to console, "Daddy, we cleaned up good and everything and you can join us next time when you're home." Cobb, to his credit, smiles warmly, letting his wrinkles de-age for a bit and he kisses her forehead. (That's much better than Arthur's half assed dad.)

As he tosses and turns that evening Arthur decides he'd even let the kids cream-spray his Armani, since earlier, after the kids were asleep, Cobb and him were washing the dishes, and Cobb grabbed his wrist before Arthur left to retire for the night, and softly said, "Thank you." It was Cobb's eyes that did it: the azure smiled and told him promises.

Arthur had smirked even though his heart was hammering out of his chest and he withdrew his arm and said, "No problem," - he remembered who he was talking to - "Cobb." 

At that, Cobb looked like he wanted to say something more, and his eyes flickered across Arthur's dark ones. Cobb unknowingly fingered his wedding band while he shifted weight form one foot to the other, and it was then that Arthur left the room. 

\---

SCENE 2

It's morning and Arthur's reading the newspaper. Sleepy day. No extractions, just some research for upcoming jobs. And Arthur thinks to himself, he really has to get his own apartment soon, because he's growing on the kids too much and - likewise - the same is happening to him - and he's pretty sure that if Cobb keeps on giving him glowing looks he's not going to be able to handle it if Phillipa and James see Uncle Arthur leaving (if he leaves, he won't be stateside for long) as a repeat of Cobb's disappearance. 

So Arthur starts looking at the classified ads and the real estate section and it's at that moment that Cobb looks over his shoulder and glances at the paper.

"Interested in property?" His eyebrow goes up.

"… I was thinking of getting my own place." Arthur doesn't know why he's gripping his expresso.

Cobb's face shutters. "Well … Inception did pay well. There are some nice places I know, not that flashy or rundown, either, if you're interested…"

Now Arthur's eyebrow rises. It's almost as if Cobb's rehearsed this.

"Since when are you interested in property?" he says in regular Arthur fashion.

Cobb rolls his eyes and the tension dissipates. "I am a legitimate architect now, you know."

Oh. Yeah. How could Arthur forget? Every Cobb-less chair the PASIV was linked to… every operation he'd embarked on without the extractor nudging him and shooting him in the knee if the dream was failing. Every drink with an extractor without Cobb's golden, Titanic-Jack hair and his slovenly looks. Every day on the job was another reminder.

It was easier to let Cobb think that Arthur couldn't imagine him as a legitimate businessman. The truth was much harder: that Arthur really could picture him growing old with those two blessed angels of his, and could see the older man intermittently but ultimately never regretting the daring world he left. Having Cobb believe that Arthur didn't fully believe in him was… easier, because Arthur was legit scared of how much he found he did trust the older man's world. 

Arthur was stuck in that world Cobb left behind: the dream.

He thought to himself, he's growing on me. I should leave.

Arthur shrugged.

Cobb broke the silence first as he sat down opposite him. "You know that the offer to stay doesn't have a expiry date, right?"

Arthur raised his eyebrow again. "I know that if I said something like, 'oh I'll be a bother', you'll just say something about how the kids like me and I babysit them, and I even buy groceries, so no, not much bother, am I?" I'm droning, he thinks numbly. Cobb's eyes never leave his face as he speaks. "I just want…" To what? Get some privacy? Meet Ariadne? Accept Saito's job offer?

Arthur breathes in and looks out at the bay window. The light from outside is spilling through the curtains and heats the floor. His watch is reflecting the time. If he reached into his pocket, he could see the loaded die glint in the sun.

"I just want… to be alone for a while. I've got to think about some stuff."

Arthur knows Cobb's disappointed when he hurriedly looks away and fumbles with the kids' leftover oatmeal. Cobb's eyes are clear as ever, though, and they are calculatedly empty when he faces him again after placing the plates in their proper cabinets.

"Downtown is pretty convenient. Crime rate is low. And if you live on Charity Road, it's close enough to the headquarters of some big name corporations, if you're interested in the jobs."

The point man can hear the question hidden there: is it about work? Yea, Arthur misses those sprawling three-level missions but he'd rather die than admit it to the man who lost everything and then gained everything again by these by-the-skin-of-your-teeth operations. Yea, Arthur misses the old days, but no… he doesn't want to risk everything so openly again. (Miss, yes. Want, no.)

If Cobb wants to play subtle mind games, well, fine. 

"It's not about the jobs."

Wow, Arthur grimaces at how subtle that was.

Cobb cocks his head and he's moving swiftly around the dining counter, wiping off stains. Arthur off-handedly hands him the dirty cups of coffee and they soundlessly wash up breakfast.

"Personal?"

The question comes as they're watching the morning news; Cobb switching through History Channel and CNN and Arthur operating the radio to get some good quality music. Arthur's too absorbed in the dials to notice when Cobb prods his knee and repeats, louder this time, "Do you want to move because of a personal thing?"

Looks like Cobb has given up on subtle too. 

Arthur turns down the volume and gives another shrug. "Yeah."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No. No offense, Cobb." 

Cobb sighs.

Arthur feels his entire chest constrict at that small outtake of air. He thinks about how much weaker his own heartbeat sounds to his ears, and briefly thinks about this stirring of emotion as the problem. Arthur hasn't had asthma since he was four, and he feels like a wailing James-alike because his heart won't stop freaking thundering in his ribcage. (Ba doom. Ba doom.)

They don't talk much for the rest of the day.

\---

SCENE 3

James is playing with a fancy new toy car his grand aunt got him - vroom vroom vroom, that's the buzzing noise he imitates of the engine as he pushes the tiny hand-sized automobile around the playroom floor, decorated with hand-made signs and 'elephant crossings' (Phillipa insists on elephants, not zebras, God knows why.)

'Uncle Arthur' is in his element. He's wearing a loose Nirvana shirt with rolled up jeans and he's bleary eyed from Phillipa dragging him out of bed at six a.m. to help them walk Buster, the greyhound. Perfect surrogate Dad mode.

He's drifting off to take a nap on the princess-themed couch when James jumps on his stomach, screaming 'kowabungle'. Grunting, Arthur rolls him off and says, "How are you guys so awake?"

Phillipa smiles sweetly and says, "I don't know. Daddy says that too."

James is more direct. "It's because we don't drink coffee!"

Arthur raises his eyebrows and mentally bets ten grand that this kid is gonna turn out a coffee addict like his expresso-extravagrant father. "Um, OK, James."

James pouts. "Don't call me James!"

Arthur shifts so his knees aren't knocking into the Ariel pillows. "Uh huh, so what do I call you, Mr. Not James?"

"Cobb!"

Arthur tries not to show his surprise. His mouth only opens a little wider than usual and Phillipa is rolling her eyes with her hands on her hips.

She says, "Only Daddy is 'Cobb'."

James shakes his head. "Mrs. Larson calls me James Cobb when I get in trouble."

Phillipa counters, "Cobb's your last name. Nobody calls people by only their last name remember Grandma says it's rude? That's why first names were invented."

James' face is red and he's stomping his foot. "No-o-o-o-o."

Arthur finally finds his tongue before the two are at it again. "So you want to be called James Cobb?"

"No-o-o-o-o-o. My name is Cobb."

Arthur frowns. "Sorry, kiddo, but your dad named you James for a reason. It'd be confusing to call you Cobb since your dad's name is Cobb."

"How come you call him Cobb?" Phillipa twirls her hair with her index fingers. 

"I got used to it since I met him at work, and he was my boss. To be polite, you don't normally call your bosses by first name."

"Why?" James pipes up.

"Because… you don't know them all that well. You only know about the work side of them."

"Okaaay. But you don't go to work with Daddy anymore."

"Yeah."

"All my best friends call me Phillipa, not Ms. Cobb or Cobb."

Phillipa stared at him expectantly.

"Since Daddy's your best friend, you should call him Dom." Phillipa says firmly. "Uncle Eames does it. And Daddy doesn't even like him much." 

Damn 'Uncle Eames', Arthur thought with a burst of irritation. (Then he felt a bit better since he realized even Cobb's kid daughter could see Eames could be a pain in Cobb's arse.)

"It's just a habit. It's hard to break."

"Are you guys pestering your uncle again?" Cobb poked his head through the doorway. "Oh, James, get your shirt on properly!"

\---

SCENE 4

With minimal help from Cobb, Arthur's found a nice two-room apartment in the heart of the city. He's unpacked his polos, business shirts, and suits by alphabetical order and a freakin' gradient (from white-as-Fisher's-facility's-snow to blacker-than-getting-tortured-in-a-dream shades). All because when he's emotionally confused he gets OCD. He unpacks a chessboard, a fresh pack of Bicycle cards, and a poker set. He fingers the dice over and over again and spreads out all the game pieces of these three sets… 

You know, Arthur always thought if he'd had the time, and a little more wherewithal, he'd end up a chess grandmaster like his Granddad. 

While his Granddad was pure shit at shielding Arthur from his dad's abuse, he did teach him about building mental fortresses. He'd taught his lanky grandson tactics and strategies that exploited and conquered every time… all with the same rules and the same pieces, but Granddad injected a bit of magic every time. (That was then. Now Arthur knew that his Granddad overdosed before the contest, that's why he won't compete, and that the 'magic' is just plain old thinking. Nothing spectacular about the most fundamental process - aside from breathing in sweet mother oxygen.)

Great, now my mind is rambling, Arthur thinks.

Arthur doesn't really know why he's here, eyes closed, sunk in the armchair next to the coffee table fingering a pawn, a die, and an ace. 

Because Cobb's kids will grow up happy & well and Cobb himself will eventually be a Granddad and the world will go on and on without him in Cobb's life - ?

Because he's been freaking feeling like a pawn in this intangible, screwed up game of inter politics and espionage and comeuppance called dream hacking?

Because for everyday the last few weeks he's mentally been weighing the odds of him having a happy ever after… with Cobb?

He pictures the checklist and marks d) all of the above.

Arthur's eyes flutter open on the third ring of the doorbell. "Goddamn it Arthur!" 

Arthur jumps out of his chair and attempts to look smooth shaven. He knows that voice; he'd follow it to oblivion and back. He shakes his head, opens the door, and is met by none other than a soaking wet, flushed looking, oversized raincoat donning -

"- Cobb." Arthur's surprise at his wet attire overwhelms his initial reaction to demand why he's here (and even that reaction is slightly waning with every sneaked glance at Cobb's chapped, dripping lips as he speaks.)

Cobb rambles about stupid taxi drivers and how he meant to catch Arthur before the downtown rush, but no, this eighty-year-old man had a grander plan of cutting through a whole new construction route, and he was late and the guy didn't know how to find the way out of the complex so Cobb just went out and walked to Arthur's apartment.

"Cobb."

There's a flicker of that hesitance in Cobb's eyes again, upon hearing his name uttered so bluntly by his 'simple and clean' former colleague.

"Exactly where were you dropped off?" Arthur's eyebrows haven't stopped rising and falling and rising by routine since Cobb's started his story. (Don't worry he hasn't started completely stationery, he got Cobb a clean jacket and turned on the heater.)

"Over by the bus station near Latin Square," Cobb deadpanned without looking at Arthur.

Arthur stared.

"That's a twenty minute walk."

"Wasn't that bad."

"Twenty minute walk! Wasn't there, any public transportation reputable at all?"

"No… Traffic was horrible. Walking there was three times faster than going by cars."

"Still."

"Really. I didn't mind." Something in the offhand, yet slightly-too-rushed-to-be-casual way Cobb lets the syllables roll off his tongue makes Arthur's heart constrict. (Again.)

Cobb glances at him and starts saying, "How are you?" before sneezing.

Arthur lets the eyebrows rise now to 105% and he hands him a tissue box and warm towels with a barely-there snarky, "Hm. Twenty minute walk in the rain. Totally rational."

Maybe Cobb's tired or he's sick of the utterly-there tension between them because he just cuts to the chase and looks at him. "Maybe it wasn't. Like you moving out of the house."

Arthur's flabbergasted. "Seriously?"

"Seriously?"

A few minutes pass and neither speak.

"…Are we having a silent argument?"

Cobb unwillingly cracks a small grin at that. "No, I believe it's out loud now."

"You've got to be kidding me." Arthur is standing up now, and twisting and untangling his fingers. "Why are you even here?" If it's supposed to come out abrupt, it doesn't sound that way. Arthur winces at how breathless he sounds.

"I'm here because I have a proposition for you."

This sounds familiar. "You sound like Saito."

"Before he tried to kill us or after we secured the success of his company?"

"Does it matter?"

"OK, well, I'm not trying to kill you or take over a business. I just… I figured something out."

"Does this something constitute you walking twenty minutes in the rain and now being as sick as a dog?"

"Yea, yea it does."

(There is really so little that can be said to describe the climax of this scene.)

Cobb stares up at Arthur and suddenly he's leaped on his feet and is that the towel slipping off as he grabs Arthur's chin roughly next to him and is that (could that) possibly be Cobb's wet lips ever so gently meeting his with nothing more than a feathery kiss -? Arthur feels like his asthma attacks will be killing off brain cells and sensory nerves now. 

"Cobb." Arthur pushes him off as softly as he can. 

God, as much as Arthur wants this, he's so scared of how Cobb-like and un-Cobb-like that pure show of want is. 

"Don't call me that."

Arthur laughs, he can't help it, it's so comical. He can still feel Cobb's light kiss. He needs something real, a remembered sound, to break it off. "You sound like James."

"The kids told me about it." Cobb says. His breath is ghosting across Arthur's cheek. They're still close enough to be considered inappropriate in any outside setting - other than a bar. "Why do you do that?"

"Habit."

Cobb gives a pretty dry laugh for the half-sticky, evaporating feel of him. "That can't be all."

"… I don't understand."

Cobb has pulled away further now. "Let me explain."

It takes him a while to start: "Imagine there's a person you really really like. An old friend of yours, someone you've been with constantly for a good portion of your adult life now. He's single. So are you. And because of grief over your deceased wife, you've shielded yourself from the knowledge of the possibility that you may have fallen in love with him a few months after she died. And because you don't want all that sacrifice, all those awkward comparisons to your wife, whom you still somewhat consider yourself married to, albeit in another life… You try so hard to keep him as a friend. You let him in, but only a little." He takes a breath now. 

"But you start to see little flickers of something… more, when he looks at you. And you see him play with the kids like he's their second dad and you think about how crazy this situation is and yet how normal it feels inside. And you know if it ever worked, it would be amazing; and if it didn't… well that would suck as fuck." 

He's really going fast now - "You think and you think and you dream and you dream and somehow one day when he's not in the room next door or sitting next to you making coffee, it hits you like a train. The missing. It's insane, and you kind of explode inside because your life has consisted of so much raw missing lately. And… you're hopeful somehow he misses you too. Then the ideas start running off. Like inception. They all say, maybe we can make this work."

Arthur is frozen. His mind is going a mile a minute and he can barely comprehend this - confession? - pouring so readily, so lovingly, out of this gorgeous, grieving rain-soaked idiot's perfect mouth. And it's all so obviously thought out. 

Cobb's been in love with him. For a while now. How did he not know? Or, if he had an inkling, why did he deny him something he felt too?

He shuts up the singing angel and devil in his head and eventually finds his voice. "How does this relate to me calling you Cobb?"

He's thankful Cobb doesn't seem offended by the sudden turn in conversation because he just smiles ever so lightly and he says -- leaning in for effect and letting his fingers brush his ears:

" … Arthur."

But it's not like all the other "Arthurs" he's said in the midst of combat, or dreams collapsing, or telling him to get on it, or watching him teach the kids something 4th graders wouldn't understand. It's not even like the time he admitted he needed help after Mal's death. This is a word - his name - being caressed with care and elongated vowels. Intimacy. Friendship. Kinship.  Cobb says "Arthur" like it's a prayer; like even the priest is starstruck at some miracle. 

He says it like he's in love with every fibre and sinew and red blood cell that Arthur is.

Cobb seems pleased with something because he draws back and says, as if he didn't do something weirdly inappropriately sexy, "Did you feel that?"

Arthur rises his eyes from the floor. "Ok."

"When you say the first name of the person you're in love with, then aside from it being utterly amazing to you, it makes you feel like you know them. Please… could you call me Dom?"

Arthur understands. He really does. He empathizes and sympathizes with him because he knows that for years, he didn't get Mal calling him 'Dom' on the phone on trips far away; and that his mother-in-law was icy and refused to call her son-in-law anything colloquial; and that all the personalness he got was business offers with his name inked in soul-selling neat black print.

But at the same time, there's a flare of panic.

Arthur's initial happiness drains a bit. "I can't." He sees the confusion bloom on Cobb's face.

"I can't… I can't just start calling you Dom."

"Why?"

"… It's not what you think." Arthur takes a breath and steels himself to look into the other man's eyes. "It's not that I don't like you, hell, that I don't love you" - he stumbles a bit here - "and that I don't comprehend what you had to go through when Mal died." Cobb isn't flinching like Arthur thought he would. "It's just that I… I fell in love with Cobb. You're Dom, too. I get that. There's a before and after Mal that I'll never quite get the fine lines on. Perhaps I'm stepping right in the middle." Arthur thinks Cobb is oblivious to the slight, involuntary nod Cobb makes. "But… It's not like I haven't thought about it. Over and over again. Dom is Mal. I'm not Mal."

Cobb speaks at last. His eyes are soft. Like James' baby blue fuzzy blanket. "And what is Cobb?"

"My time to have you. If you'd allow it." Wow, he thinks, that was cheesier than Domino's pizza.

"That's romantic and weird at the same time." 

Arthur's eyebrows are wriggling like snakes. "Wasn't inception always?"

Cobb laughs. It's full of mirth and the saddest twinge of layered sadness, like a matured wine. "We'll never be normal." He's avoiding the whole Dom-Cobb thing.

"I like your kids."

Cobb shrugs. "I think they know that you're more than an Uncle to them."

"Phillippa's getting too smart."

"Like me?" he says, with a twinkle in his eye.

No, like both of us, Arthur thinks, but the sudden urge to say that while caressing Dom's cheek is making the room too hot. He thought the aircon was fixed already. To be honest… the swiftness of this - 15 minutes ago, he was lamenting his almost-there-but-not-quite/semi-homoerotic relationship with Cobb. Now, he's admitted he's in love with the man, and what's more, this man is in love with him too.

"Yes, like you," he says at last.

Cobb stills. He gives a broken laugh. "I was really self-centered here just now, huh? Asking you to call me something completely different. Being so distraught over it?"

Arthur casts his eyes downward. "Don't worry." He grabs Cobb's wrist lightly. "I understand."

\---

SCENE 5

The admission doesn't seem to change much at first. Cobb still grumbles when Arthur picks at his ties not matching his sock color. Arthur still doesn't know what to do with his professional life. Should he do freelance corporate espionage? Should he apply for some search engine company and cover up his past? Cobb, for all his high talk of legitimate occupations, doesn't blink when Arthur seems to gravitate closer and closer to going back. He's stuck in inertia. Cobb understands. Or at least tries too.

In a nutshell, its not the happily-ever-after love confessions in the movie get, they don't sleep together on that first night when Cobb stumbled in, they haven't told the kids, Arthur stills calls Cobb, Cobb.

But it would be lying to say it didn't have an effect. Like the starting mechanism on a Rube Goldberg machine. Cobb smiles a little more, Phillipa gets first in her class thanks to Arthur's tuition, Cobb's mother-in-law goes to Philadelphia and sends a postcard because she's happy he's happy (Arthur is not sure when Cobb felt obligated to share their relationship at all). The garden is still overdue for weeding. But now there's two men to do it, and the bills aren't so high anymore, and Arthur finds himself realizing he'd sacrifice far greater than an Armani suit to ruins if it means Cobb and his children are alive and well and laughing. 

Every now and then Arthur will be lounging around the house, and Cobb will just make up an excuse to join him, or check in with him. Almost like it's 100% normal for two business partners in the corporate business sabotage 

The kids are at an art camp. Cobb's cooking spaghetti and Arthur's tossing a salad. They're sitting down at the table when it hits Arthur that this is what parents do. Their kids go off on playdates and the parents get dates. 

Cobb gives him a questioning look.

Arthur takes a quick swig of water. "This is like a date, isn't it? When parents get relieved their kids are out and they get all romantic on each other?"

Cobb grins. "Did the special pasta tip you off?"

"No, it's terrible as ever."

"Come on, it improved ever since Ariadne sent me those new recipes."

"Ariadne's recipes my ass. It improved when I told you you had to make 'Spaghetti Saturday' an actual cause for celebration, and that your well-manned James was feeding it to the dog - "

Cobb's eyes dance in the firelight. "Well," he murmurs, "Yes, you may have influenced my improvement in spaghetti cooking. Your hands-on cooking in the kitchen is superb."

Arthur tries to ignore what that does to his lower abdomen. 

"Really now." He tries to keep his disinterested.

Cobb gives another wolfish grin. "Yes, Arthur, really. You're gorgeous and the most handsome person I know and I am so lucky you are here to save my ass." He puts down his fork.

Something untangles in Arthur's hammering heart and he stops trying to swirl the terrible pasta. When did it get hot in here? 

He thinks of speaking for a half-second, then decides to just fuck it and kiss the guy already. His kids aren't here. Oh god picturing their faces while eating the face off of Cobb was horrible. Oh okay. That tongue thing Cobb did was the most skilled extracting he'd ever had. Wait, was that taste - damn his pasta sauce is still on the left of his upper lip. Arthur growls. Hell he growls, since when has he had that reaction, that libido? Cobb's pasta sauce = aromatic/poorly treated poison? Then Cobb strokes his cheek and laughs into the kiss, deepening it, and Arthur decides he honestly doesn't give shit about pasta right now when Cobb is being utterly shameless.

Arthur can't stop himself from muttering, "No, you're gorgeous Cobb," he sits down matter-of-fact right into Cobb's lap. "Or Dom. Dominic. Whichever and whoever and whatever you are -" at this Cobb touches his forearm almost reverently - "you are amazing." 

At this Cobb curls his fingers into Arthur's hair. They break apart from a rushed kiss.

"You called me Dom," he's got that shit eating grin again. 

Arthur plays the role of an exasperated parent. "You're Cobb. You're Dom. I love you no matter what name you have."

He says it like it's any other fact or statistic they have on a mission. But Cobb - Dom - notices that slight hitch and he leans in to capture Arthur's attention.

"Thank you," he says quietly, "for saving me. Us. This household."

Their foreheads are as near as touching. If he put his hand to Cobb's chest, he could feel and hear his heartbeat. He allows himself the luxury of ghosting his fingers over Cobb's face; tired, but ethereal in that hope. As Arthur runs his hands over Cobb's defined cheekbones, feeling the skin - real, real, real, not a dream - he thinks. The fire crackles and casts light to Cobb's face. His blue eyes are regarding his lazily, an innocent trust that belies what's happening here. Arthur looks away suddenly. He thinks of Mal.

Cobb looks at him intently. "If I -" he clears his throat - "had to do it again, all of it, I would, because inception brought me you. I love you as I loved Mal, and I don't regret anything. So if you were wondering..."

Arthur breaks the tension with a well-timed laugh. "That's cheesy."

"That's rich coming from someone who just declared his unchanging love."

Arthur doesn't really think this is weird anymore. This is his life now, he thinks. Semi-dad, romantic partner, retired point man. In the middle of kissing Cobb he has a strange realization that he should change his Facebook status to taken/in a relationship/heed over hells in love, with three <3 <3 <3's or whatever gets the message out. They should tell the kids sometime too. But there's no rush. In a way, he thinks, they've been doing this for forever anyways.


End file.
